Interrogations deal grants Bush leeway

Human and civil rights groups have broadly denounced a compromise deal on the application of the Geneva Conventions to detainees in the "global war on terror" worked out between the White House and Republican senators John McCain (R-AZ), John Warner (R-VA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) whose efforts have been backed until now by their Democratic colleagues. President Bush has been pushing legislation that would endorse the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) controversial terrorist interrogation program since June, when the Supreme Court ruled that al-Qaida members must be protected under the Geneva Conventions. Before the court ruling, the legality of the interrogation program relied on Bush's assumption that the combatants were not protected under the treaty and, therefore, could be subjected to aggressive techniques. US officials say the Supreme Court ruling–which also determined the trials Bush established to prosecute the terrorists were illegal–threw cold water on the program because of fears interrogators could be prosecuted for war crimes. The White House wanted to have Congress endorse the CIA's interrogation program with a law narrowly defining Geneva Convention standards, giving the president the latitude he wanted to continue the CIA program. But when the GOP senators objected and were joined by growing numbers of allies–claiming such a move would be seen as an attempt to back out of the treaty–the White House relented. In a deal struck on Sept. 21, the Senate Republicans agreed to drop from the bill a broad definition of Geneva Convention standards. The bill provides legal protection for the CIA program by precisely defining and enumerating atrocities widely accepted as war crimes–including torture, rape, biological experiments and cruel and inhuman treatment. For acts that do not rise to the level of a war crime but may test the bounds of the Geneva Conventions, the GOP bill allows the president to make the call. Such a provision is intended to allow him to authorize methods that might otherwise be seen as illegal by international courts. The resulting legislation, if passed by Congress as Republicans hope, would revive the CIA's program because it would reduce the risk that agency workers could be found guilty of war crimes. The deal also could open the door to aggressive techniques that test the bounds of international standards of prisoner treatment. The net effect of the bill is to raise the legal bar on war crime violations, making it tougher to prosecute a US official unless the act meets specific definitions. Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said the president plans to use his authority to "clarify" Geneva Convention obligations by executive order, which must be published in the Federal Register. "The key to this deal will be whether Congress exercises real oversight over the CIA interrogation program," said Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), who as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee has been briefed on how the CIA handles terrorism suspects. Harman said she wants the administration to give Congress a list of techniques approved by the president and legal justification for the methods. "If Congress does not demand this information, we will be giving the president another blank check to violate the law," she said. Most analysts expressed skepticism that the deal would make a substantial difference in the way the administration intends to treat detainees at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. Those doubts were bolstered by statements made by the White House on Sept. 22 in which top officials asserted that the proposed legislation would permit the CIA to use what the White House calls "alternative interrogation procedures" against "high-value" terrorist suspects. Hadley declined to answer a reporter's question about whether "waterboarding," a technique that rights groups and even the State Department have long denounced as torture, could be permitted under the compromise. His refusal came just hours after one of the three Republican senators, John McCain, asserted that the deal's language barred waterboarding and other "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions. "It only takes 30 seconds or so to see that the senators have capitulated entirely, that the US will hereafter violate the Geneva Conventions... and that there will be very little pretense about it," according to Marty Lederman, an international law professor at Georgetown University School of Law, who suggested that the White House had gotten the better of the rebels. Legal experts have described the deal as a series of interlocking paradoxes. For example, it would guarantee terrorist masterminds charged with war crimes an array of procedural protections. But it would bar hundreds of minor figures and people who say they are innocent bystanders from access to the courts to challenge their potentially lifelong detentions. And while there is substantial disagreement about just which harsh interrogation techniques the compromise would prohibit, there is no dispute that it would allow military prosecutors to use statements that had been obtained under harsh techniques that are now banned.